Word of the Day

Tuesday November 24, 2009

dissolute [DIS-uh-loot]

adjective

Loose in morals and conduct; recklessly abandoned to sensual pleasures or vices.

Perkus is a cultural critic with a recognizably New York sort of resume: he achieved underground success with a series of broadside rants pasted around the city, then went mainstream with a column in Rolling Stone before fading back into dissolute obscurity.

Gregory Cowles, "Another World", New York Times Book Review, Oct 25, 2009
Though Brecht later claimed that an infamous resident of his hometown of Augsburg was the model, there is plenty to suggest that 20-year-old Brecht -- dissolute and disillusioned in the bloody wake of "the Great War," had more than a little bit of bad-boy Baal in him when he wrote the play.

Kerry Reid, "'Baal' intriguingly flawed; light fare in 'Black Comedy'", Chicago Tribune, Sep 25, 2009
For there is nothing amongst mortal men more fair and admirable, than the chaste minds of this people. Know therefore, that with them there are no stews, no dissolute houses, no courtesans, nor anything of that kind.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) An English author. The New Atlantis (1627)

Origin of the Word

Dissolute, approximately 1400, derives from Latin dissolvere "loosen up" from dis- + solvere, "to release."